Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- List of abbreviations -- Introduction -- Phenomenology and twentieth-century European philosophy -- What is phenomenology? -- The origins of the term 'phenomenology' -- Phenomenology in Brentano -- The presuppositionless starting point -- The suspension of the natural attitude -- The life-world and being in the world -- Phenomenology as the achievement of knowing -- The structure of intentionality -- Philosophy and history -- Phenomenology in France -- Conclusion -- 1 Franz Brentano: descriptive psychology and intentionality -- Introduction: exact philosophy -- The Brentano school -- Brentano: life and writings (1838-1917) -- Brentano's philosophical outlook: empiricism -- Brentano's theory of wholes and parts -- Brentano's reform of logic -- Descriptive psychology -- Inner perception -- Inner perception as additional awareness -- The tripartite structure of mental life -- Presentations and modifications of presentations -- The intentional relation -- Distinction between physical and psychical phenomena -- Twardowski's modification of Brentanian descriptive psychology -- Brentano and Husserl -- 2 Edmund Husserl: founder of phenomenology -- Introduction: an overview of Husserl and his philosophy -- Husserl's central problem: the mystery of subjectivity -- Husserl as perpetual beginner -- The stages of Husserl's development -- Husserl: life and writings (1859-1938) -- A leader without followers -- 3 Husserl's Logical Investigations (1900-1901) -- Introduction -- The composition of the Logical Investigations -- The ideal of science as a system of evident cognitions -- The Prolegomena (1900) -- Psychologism -- The six Investigations and the 'breakthrough' to pure phenomenology -- A brief survey of the six Investigations.

The First Logical Investigation -- The Fifth Logical Investigation -- The Sixth Logical Investigation -- Realism and idealism in the Logical Investigations -- 4 Husserl's discovery of the reduction and transcendental phenomenology -- Introduction -- Phenomenology as a presuppositionless science -- Husserl's principle of principles -- The absolute self-givenness of our mental acts -- Phenomenology an eidetic not a factual science -- Eidetic seeing (Wesenerschauung) -- Husserl's transcendental turn -- David Hume as a transcendental philosopher -- The critique of naturalism -- The epoché and the reductions -- The epoché and scepticism -- Breaking with actuality -- Imaginative free variation -- The noetic-noematic structure of experience -- Problems with the reduction -- The horizon -- 5 Husserl and the crisis of the European sciences -- Introduction -- The notion of constitution -- Static and genetic constitution -- The transcendental ego -- Intersubjectivity and the experience of the other (Fremderfahrung) -- The Crisis of European Sciences: the investigation of the life-world -- The life-world -- The origin of geometry -- Husserl's achievement -- 6 Martin Heidegger's transformation of phenomenology -- The enigma of Heidegger -- The question of being -- Heidegger: life and writings (1889-1976) -- The political implications of Heidegger's philosophy -- 7 Heidegger's Being and Time -- Introduction: the road to Being and Time -- The review of Karl Jaspers' Psychology of World Views (c. 1921) -- Heidegger's Aristotle interpretation (1922) -- Heidegger's critical appropriation of Husserl -- Readiness to hand (Zuhandenheit) and presence at hand (Vorhandenheit) -- Expression (Aussage) -- Heidegger's fusion of phenomenology with hermeneutics -- The hermeneutical structure of the question -- The hermeneutical circle -- The nature of Dasein.

Authenticity and inauthenticity -- Anxiety and being-towards-death -- Mood and state of mind (Befindlichkeit) -- Mitsein -- Transcendental homelessness -- Heidegger's influence -- 8 Hans-Georg Gadamer: philosophical hermeneutics -- Introduction: an overview of Gadamer's philosophy -- The classical legacy -- The tradition of understanding -- Philosophy as dialogue -- Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-): life and writings -- Gadamer on the Greeks and the Germans -- The importance of language -- The tradition of hermeneutics -- Hermeneutics in Dilthey and Heidegger -- Truth and Method (1960) -- Language and world -- Gadamer's influence -- 9 Hannah Arendt: the phenomenology of the public sphere -- Introduction: Hannah Arendt as philosopher -- Arendt: life and writings (1906-1975) -- The Human Condition -- Arendt's contribution -- 10 Emmanuel Levinas: the phenomenology of alterity -- Introduction: ethics as first philosophy -- Emmanuel Levinas: life and writings (1906-1995) -- Levinas and phenomenology -- The role of philosophy -- The religious dimension of Levinas's thought -- Early writings -- A defence of subjectivity -- The face to face -- Levinas's influence -- 11 Jean-Paul Sartre: passionate description -- Introduction: the engagé intellectual -- Sartre's philosophical outlook -- Jean-Paul Sartre: life and writings (1905-1980) -- Post-war politics -- The Transcendence of the Ego (1936) -- L'Imaginaire (1940): the phenomenology of imagining -- Being and Nothingness (1943): phenomenological ontology -- Sartre's influence -- 12 Maurice Merleau-Ponty: the phenomenology of perception -- Introduction: a philosophy of embodiment -- Maurice Merleau-Ponty: life and writings (1908-1961) -- A phenomenology of origins -- Merleau-Ponty's intellectual background -- The critique of reductionism in The Structure of Behaviour (1942) -- Phenomenology of Perception (1945).

The role of sensation in perception -- One's own body (Le corps propre) -- The body as expression -- Merleau-Ponty's later philosophy -- The metaphysics of contingency -- Merleau-Ponty's influence on contemporary philosophy -- 13 Jacques Derrida: from phenomenology to deconstruction -- Introduction - neither philosophy nor literature -- Jacques Derrida: life and writings (1930-) -- Deconstruction and morality -- Derrida and the end of philosophy -- The critique of Husserl's The Origin of Geometry -- Logocentrism -- Deconstruction: 'more than one language' -- The world as text: "there is no outside-text" -- Derrida's engagement with Husserlian phenomenology -- Derrida's debt to Heidegger -- The influence of structuralism: de Saussure and Lévi-Strauss -- The nature of 'différance' -- Sketch of a history of différance -- Différance and the trace -- Derrida and religion -- Derrida's contribution to twentieth-century philosophy -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.